VISSARION GRIGORYEVICH BELINSKY (1847)

Eminent Russian literary critic, father of the Russian radical intelligentsia.

Expelled from the University of Moscow (1832), he earned his living as a journalist. His first substantial critical articles, Literary Dreams (published in the newspaper, Molva, 1834), expounded F.W.J. Schelling´s view of national character, applying it to Russian culture, though Belinsky later embraced Hegel´s philosophy of history. He obtained a permanent post (1839) with the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. By 1840 he was showing signs of revolt against orthodox Hegelianism.

Some Soviet critics, taking his rare political utterances out of context, considerer his almost accidental contribution to the Russian national type of Socialism his principal achievement.

In 1846 Belinsky joined the review Sovremennik, for which he wrote about literature´s slow task of helping the still embryonic Russian nation to develop into an adult civilized society.

In 1847 he wrote a famous letter to the author Gogol, denouncing tle latter´s Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druzyami as a betrayal of the Russian people because it preached submission to church and state.